Monday, August 13, 2007

Bloody Puritans

Now, this isn't an old school form of morality aimed at punishing the filthy harlots. Prostitutes are to be offered counselling and the like in the hope of getting them off the game. Rather, they'll be forced to have it, or else. If they refuse this help, if they refuse to concede that the people trying to help them are right and they are wrong to do what they do, they will be jailed. Classic puritanism, in other words: our sense of morality will trump your ability to make your own decisions as to how to behave.

Puss, I'd say Gladstone was a moralist, not a puritan. It's not as if the girls he took back to Number 10 were ordered to repent or burn; rather he gave them a nice cup of tea, a reading from the bible and some earnest entreaties. He was a Liberal, after all, and did not believe in coercion. Puritans, by contrast, do.

Ven: the Irish and the English share a number of traits: including an over-abundance of animal spirits when it comes to drink, sex, noise and violence are one such thing, a talent for poetry is another side to it. Unfortunately this makes the puritans very twitchy indeed and there is a constant battle to control these aspects of people's characters.

The difference between the two is having a majority religion which was designed entirely to keep order, but which has outlived its usefulness (and which is therefore not taken seriously) and one which is badshit crazy, but which people are expected to take very seriously indeed (and which until recently was).This means a particular focus on and hang up about sex.

If things go well, in a few years the Irish will be as screwed up about sex as the English. Ah...